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The image of the young child has undergone considerable review and refinement in recent decades. Images that positioned children as consistently vulnerable and in need of protection, or adults in the making, often – but not always – have been superseded with images of the child as a capable and competent rights-holder; as a knower and co-constructor of culture, experiences, knowledge and understandings.
Reading through the papers in this issue has prompted me to reflect on how the image of early childhood educators has changed during a similar period. How do we regard early childhood educators? Are they regarded as competent and capable? As rights-holders? Are early childhood educators regarded as knowers and co-constructors of culture, experiences, knowledge and understandings?
Thirty years ago, Anne Stonehouse (Citation1989) questioned the status of early childhood professionals in Australia as she wrote about Nice ladies who love children. Stonehouse offered several images of the early childhood professional including:
the Mary Poppins view, where educators ‘frolic happily and effortlessly with children’ (p. 62);
the ‘motherly, stern, but loving teacher … [who] longs for the good old days’ (p. 63);
the politically active educator who is ‘an effective and persistent fighter, a forceful lobbyist, and an articulate speaker’ (p. 64); and
the early childhood educator as businessperson.
How would we amend this list as we approach the third decade of the twenty-first century? How do we characterise contemporary early childhood educators?
One of the threads running through the papers in this issue relates to professionalism and how we expect early childhood educators to enact professionalism. Across many parts of the world, there have been concerted efforts to increase the regulation and accountability of early childhood education and educators. In Australia, for example, a national curriculum framework has been developed, a national quality framework is in place, considerable investment has been made in the early childhood space, and there has been an enhanced focus on the importance of qualifications in early childhood education. Across several states and territories, the professional registration and/or accreditation of early childhood teachers has positioned them alongside teachers in primary and secondary schools. In many ways, these changes have strengthened the profession. However, these same processes often have increased our expectations of early childhood educators, without necessarily delivering the increased professional status and rewards that were anticipated.
Among the papers in this issue, van Rooijen and Jacobs argue that one outcome of the focus on regulation has been an increased emphasis on child safety and protection at the expense of the provision of challenging environments that promote risky play. Their study of Dutch after-school childcare settings identified tensions among educators around promoting safety and autonomy in their work, as well as in their collaborations with colleagues as they sought to create play environments that were both safe and challenging. van Rooijen and Jacobs advocate for professional learning programmes to support educators to develop greater confidence to deal with uncertainties. Underpinning this confidence is the researchers’ call for educators to regard themselves as interpreters, as well as implementers, of curriculum.
Professionalisation is also the focus of the article by O'Regan, Halpenny and Hayes who report a study of childminders in Ireland. While childminders care for a major proportion of young children to age 6 years and provide a substantial share of after-school childcare, they are exempt from regulation. Despite this, many of the childminders who responded to an online survey or participated in a world café forum were described as ‘well-qualified and engaged, with a sense of professional identity’. Among these participants the elements of close relationships, nurturing pedagogy and a rich home environment in which to undertake childminding were valued more than professionalism – ‘defined as using contracts and policies, holding qualifications and insurance, etc’. The sense of professionalism expressed by these educators reflected a ground-up, organic approach, rather than an imposed professionalism governed by regulation and accountability. In an international context of top-down regulation, how are educators positioned as builders of their own professionalism?
The systematic review of play-based learning complied by Bubikova-Moan, Hjetland and Wollscheid recognises the international focus on enhanced learning outcomes for children who engage with early childhood education, noting particularly the policy pressure to ensure children’s readiness for school. They argue that one consequence of this pressure is confusion around the role of play in learning, with a tendency in some contexts to embrace pedagogies emphasising teacher-led instruction over child-initiated play. Bubikova-Moan et al. reflect on the lack of a consensus definition for play-based learning, the challenges faced by educators and the roles adopted by educators within play-based learning. The researchers advocate educators’ continuous engagement in defining and refining understandings of the interface between play and learning, both in their individual interactions and in collaboration with colleagues. In this sense, educators are regarded as co-constructors of curriculum.
Across a range of societies and communities, one of the main images of educators positions them as implementers of curriculum. As well as being competent pedagogues co-constructing appropriate approaches to play-based learning, educators are tasked with engaging young children with curriculum content and processes that are relevant, meaningful, interesting, and suitably challenging. Two articles in this issue consider science teaching in early childhood. Reinoso, Delgado-Iglesias and Fernandez surveyed teacher education students after they completed a period of professional experience to ascertain the presence of science content in classrooms of Spanish 3, 4, and 5-year-old children. While concluding that science content was present in both intended and unintended ways, they noted that there was great potential to build scientific literacy into children’s classroom experiences, particularly through encouraging children’s curiosity about natural phenomena and focusing on the processes underpinning science – such as inquiry and argumentation.
Walan and Enochsson explore two strategies to incorporate science in children’s experiences, describing the power of storytelling and drama for teaching young children about science. Noting the central role of imagination and narrative in Swedish preschools, they provide an example involving sharing a story about rhinoviruses with children, followed by opportunities for children to act out the story. Follow-up interviews with the children suggested that many had gained a range of knowledge about viruses and colds through this example. While the case study precludes generalisation, the authors promote storytelling and drama as appropriate strategies to engage young children in science.
The importance of narrative is a theme continued in the article by Thomas, Colin, and Leybaert, who report on the impact of an interactive reading programme implemented with children living in low socioeconomic circumstances. Focusing on narrative skills at both the macro- (story grammar) and microstructural (linguistic) level, Thomas et al. engaged teachers of the treatment groups in a series of reading sessions where the story was read, elements explained, understandings challenged, and questions asked. Advances in children’s microstructural narrative competence were noted as a result of the intervention.
While knowledge is categorised in many ways, educators are positioned as competent interpreters and implementers of curriculum when they possess a range of disciplinary content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and epistemic knowledge. This breadth of knowledge enables educators to consider their own and the children’s approaches to learning, as well as what they might engage with children about and how they might do this. When educators lack confidence and/or competence across a particular domain, children are unlikely to experience meaningful and relevant experiences in that domain. This was the situation reported by Nieuwmeijer, Marshall, and van Oers, who interviewed 20 Dutch early childhood educators about their engagement in musical play. The majority of these educators incorporated teacher-led musical experiences in the programmes but were unfamiliar and/or uncomfortable with musical play, which involves children exploring and creating sound in playful experiences. The article reminds us of the need to support ongoing professional learning for educators and the opportunities these provide for educators to reflect upon their practice.
The article by Belasko, Herran and Anguera presents a powerful image of the educator as a respectful and attuned caregiver of young children. Reporting analyses of video-recoded interactions at the Emmi Pickler nursery school in Budapest, the authors emphasise the importance of predictability and sense of organisation derived from routines, describing the routine of a caregiver dressing a toddler for outdoor play as a choreographed sequence characterised by individualised attention.
Around the world, early childhood education remains a highly feminised profession. This is reflected in predominantly female images of educators. Moosa and Bhana report on efforts in South Africa to increase the participation of male educators in early childhood education. In doing so, they critique role modelling discourses and call for gender equitable expectations for male educators engaged in the early childhood sector. They also argue that achieving such a change requires professional training to assist all teachers to deconstruct their own gendered ideologies.
Zhang, Song and Hong challenge us all to consider cultural differences and to engage with levels of cultural nuance as we reflect on our practice. This is the only article in the current collection that specifically explores parenting, and it has implications for how educators might understand and respond to parents whose feelings of self-worth are tied directly to their child’s performance. While this study was conducted in China, the focus among parents on high expectations for children and children’s behavioural reactions to these, may have relevance in other contexts. For example, just as accountability to standards and regulations have a prominent role in contemporary early childhood education, so too does accountability to parents. Here the image of the early childhood educator understanding cultural nuances in parental expectations and working with parents to support their children across a range of contexts comes to the fore.
The combination of articles in this issue, while seemingly disparate, offer some suggestions about how we might characterise contemporary early childhood educators. They suggest images of early childhood educators engaged in complex work as they:
interpret, implement and co-construct curriculum;
manage top-down and bottom-up approaches to professionalism;
engage with ongoing professional learning opportunities; and
demonstrate respectful, reflective practice.
While these images suggest that educators are regarded as competent and capable, they also highlight a range of expectations for educators to engage in ongoing professional learning, build expert knowledge across a range of disciplines, pedagogies and epistemologies, and critically examine educator roles, theories and expectations. Further, they reiterate the multiple levels of accountability of educators. Perhaps the next level of consideration is how all of us involved in early childhood education might support these expectations and engage in opportunities that support critical reflection and where expertise can be co-constructed and shared.
The articles in this collection also identify tensions as educators:
manage professional autonomy in a context of increased regulation and prescription;
question whether the focus on increased professional status for early childhood educators (reflected in elements such as curriculum, quality measures, standards and regulations) has delivered the anticipated benefits; and
reflect on the diversity across the field of early childhood education.
As I reflect on the images of early childhood educators emerging from these articles, I am also prompted to ask whose perspectives predominate discussions. Do we consider the perspectives of educators themselves, children, families, systems, communities, societies? How do these contribute to our developing understandings of the important – and complex – roles undertaken by early childhood educators?